(CNN) - President Barack Obama's overall approval rating has dropped below 50 percent as a growing number of Americans worry that the U.S. is likely to slip into another Great Depression within the next 12 months, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday also indicate that the economy overall remains issue number one to voters, with other economic issues - unemployment, gas prices and the federal deficit - taking three of the remaining four spots in the top five.

Read the full results (pdf).
Forty-eight percent of people questioned say they approve of how the president is handling his duties in the White House, down six points from late May. An equal 48 percent say they disapprove of how Obama's performing, up three points from late last month.

The poll indicates a slight deterioration among Democrats and independent voters, with the president's approval rating among Democrats down three points to 82 percent and down five points among independents to 42 percent.

"But far and away his biggest drop has come among Republicans. In May, over a quarter approved of President Obama's handling of his job, but that is down to 14 percent now, a clear indication that any advantage he gained from taking out Osama bin Laden has faded with time," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

According to the survey Obama's strength remains his personal appeal: Three-quarters of all Americans say they approve of him personally, including a plurality of Republicans. But positive views of the president's personality may be trumped by economic jitters.

"Obama's approval among Republicans spiked after bin Laden's death, and no one expected it to stay that high for another 18 months. But the White House is probably worried more about the much smaller drops among independents and even Democrats. Those shifts are likely due to concerns about the economy, particularly unemployment," adds Holland.

Forty-eight percent say that another Great Depression is likely to occur in the next year - the highest that figure has ever reached. The survey also indicates that just under half live in a household where someone has lost a job or are worried that unemployment may hit them in the near future. The poll was conducted starting Friday, when the Labor Department reported that the nation's jobless rate edged up to 9.1 percent.

"The poll reminded respondents that during the Depression in the 1930s, roughly one in four workers were unemployed, banks failed, and millions of Americans were homeless or unable to feed their families," says Holland. "And even with that reminder, nearly half said that another depression was likely in the next 12 months. That's not just economic pessimism - that's economic fatalism."

According to the survey, more than eight in ten Americans say that the economy is in poor shape, a number that has stubbornly remained at that level since March.

Not surprisingly, with that much economic angst, the economy is the number one issue, the only one that more than half of the public says will be extremely important to their vote for president next year. Nearly all issues that at least four in ten say will be extremely important to their vote are domestic issues. Terrorism also makes that list, but Afghanistan is fairly low and Libya is tied for dead last out of the 15 issues tested. Abortion and gay marriage also rank very low, indicating that 2012 may be an election that is shaped more by bread-and-butter issues than social and moral concerns.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted June 3-7, with 1,015 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

soundoff(54 Responses)

B

I will tell you one thing for sure, If the Republicans win in 2012 it may very well be a Depression and they will finish what Bush almost did, the destruction of this country as we knew it!

The Republicans are running on the same platform as they always have, No government involment in anything, No regulations to corporations and Wall street, No taxes for the wealthy, and Draconian social changes of we have fought for everyone over the last sixty years!

June 8, 2011 12:28 pm at 12:28 pm |

MG

Yeah but Palin will really help the economy right? Unbelievable. If Obama would only tell the nation what he has done. Unfortunatley one of his down falls is that he fails to explain what he has done and how it has helped so it allows the GOP to create lies and tell them over and over again until the ignorant population believes it. "If you tell a lie long enough it becomes truth" Goebels 1938

June 8, 2011 12:30 pm at 12:30 pm |

JFK

God help us all and the President. He has one giant mess to deal with. This wasnt going to go away quickly folks. The damage was deep and its going to years to climb out. But we can persevere. We incurred huge debts after WWII and paid down the debts over decades that followed. Our leaders must work together to fix the issues at hand. No more divisive politics and worrying about womens reproductive rights or gays. Leadership should be focused on the economy as top priority.

June 8, 2011 12:30 pm at 12:30 pm |

Rudy NYC

The economy is not going to start running on all cylinders until the housing market finishes going through its' contraction and correction and finally stabilizes. The prices of homes (not the values, the prices) have been artificially inflated because of the corrupt mortgages and home loans. Housing prices will need to drop another 40-60% before the economy stabilizes.

Selling prices were not driven by home values, but rather the prices banks wanted to put on the mortgages and then bet that mortgage would fail by taking out an insurance policy against it. We several decades worth of price increases (over 500% in some areas) over the span of just one decade, while their actual values should have (and did!) remained flat because average incomes remained flat or some cases declined.